The Modern Left ExposedExplained

Well, I wondered what exactly was "liberal" about today's left in this post. It did not take long to get an explanation from The Time of London's columnist Mick Hume. (Funny how the Rupert Murdoch owned Times has an avowed Marxist as a columnist, isn't it?) Hume explains exactly what is liberal about the left: Not a damned thing.

Spotted on the London Underground: an Amnesty sticker demanding “Stop raping Darfur”. Who was that aimed at: commuting Sudanese militiamen? Or was it just there to turn our work journey into another guilt trip?

Some of those on Sunday’s London march for action on Darfur wore blindfolds, supposedly to symbolise the West’s refusal to face the truth. To me it rather symbolised the blind ignorance of the pro-intervention lobby. Why are those who protest against the disastrous intervention in Iraq demanding more of the same for Sudan? Do they really think it will be all right if Brown and Sarkozy lead the charge instead of Bush and Blair? Duhh-fur!

The crusaders won’t learn the lesson that such interventions do not work. They perpetuate conflicts, turn civil wars into international theatres where local actors compete to win outside support, and impose hopeless states. Never mind Iraq, look at “success stories” such as Kosovo or East Timor.

The pro-interventionists drown out these inconvenient truths with pop videos and atrocity stories. As Professor Mahmood Mamdani, of Columbia University, points out, their presentation of the Darfur conflict looks more like a voyeuristic “pornography of violence”, spiced up with promiscuous claims of deaths – now 120,000, now a quarter of million, now 400,000.

It is almost funny. The left accuses those who don't agree with them of having an "I've got mine, Jack" mentality. But I think Hume explains exactly who has that mentality.